Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

MackieChan writes "It seems to have slipped under the radar, but Google Chrome now has resource-blocking abilities, and may have had the ability for some time. Using the 'beforeload' event on the document, an extension can now intercept resources from loading. Adblock for Chrome has already added it, and I expect the other 'ad-blocking' extensions have as well. Before you start praising Google, however, it's the WebKit team that deserves your credit; one Chromium developer responded to praise by stating '... thank Apple — they added it to WebKit, we just inherited it.' Firefox vs. Chrome just got a bit more exciting."

Well, you have to admire that the biggest online advertising corporation on the internet didn't pull out the ad blocking feature on it's own brand of webkit browser. Yes, Google is a corporation like any other, but at least they have a little respect for not pissing it's costumers off. I think a lot of companies in the same position would have made it so their browser ADDED ads.

I suspect it's because Google knows that virtually no one uses AdBlock, and that those who do aren't the sort that tend to click on ads anyway. Same reason they let you opt out of their DoubleClick tracking cookie -- you won't bother.

Whereas people using internet explorer as a rule won't probably care that much , I suspect firefox user in percentage (if not majorly) will care about noscript, adblock. I don't know many people without noscript and/or adblock. No granted , that could be a selection bias here, as I work in IT.

Whereas people using internet explorer as a rule won't probably care that much , I suspect firefox user in percentage (if not majorly) will care about noscript, adblock. I don't know many people without noscript and/or adblock. No granted , that could be a selection bias here, as I work in IT.

The people I know that use FF, are mostly friends in IT, or family members for which I install noscript and adblock. But even then, Google won't mind.

It takes two clicks to permanently (or temporarily) enable scripting on any websites you visit. All the rest of the scripts out there are mostly junk for advertising/tracking. You might not care personally about the privacy aspect of download scripts from doubleclick.net but some people do. There's also the fact that many sites these days will load scripts from a dozen different sites along with every page. That's a dozen unnecessary internet connections

I've recently glimpsed the screen of someone who does NOT use AdBlock, and I was shocked.

A huge animated ad taking 2/3 of the screen, and the rest of the screen was split between a bit of actual content in the lower left corner and another ad in the right half of the space under the big one. And after scrolling down, you had more and more ads. And that's a large, popular site.

At least around here, anyone who has a friend/coworker with a modicum of technical skills will have AdBlock installed... browsing t

The same people (person?) that make Adblock for Chrome also make Adblock for Safari (5.0+) [safariadblock.com] Since the feature was ported from Webkit into Chrome, I wonder if Safari has the same ability.

And for the rest, you can do this at the DNS level. In fact, analyzing the logs of a small local ISP I consluted for, 25 freaking percent of all http connections go to domains that absolutely don't deserve being resolved. Hijacking these not only makes you save bandwidth, but also is good for your customers' mental well-being.

Censoring "subversive sites", porn, etc is not only evil but also makes customers upset. Yet censoring doubleclick.com is something no free speech advocate is going to object to.

And that's adblock's MAIN problem: It's limited to single browsers only, and doesn't cover other programs that are also potentially threatened by bad sites or scripts even such as email programs that use HTML, like Outlook etc.

Using daemons?? Not needed in HOSTS files. Where do you get your misinformation from???

It doesn't catch every single resource -- ad blocking plugins for Chrome admit that it won't catch everything and still has to just hide some ads. And it's not nearly powerful enough for NoScript to work.

So there is still no Firefox vs. Chrome/Chromium. Firefox still leads, big time, because of this issue.

I'm rooting for Chrome/Chromium/Webkit to get proper blocking abilities, because it's great otherwise. But until they can do what's necessary to get true blocking, I won't use it.

It doesn't catch every single resource -- ad blocking plugins for Chrome admit that it won't catch everything and still has to just hide some ads.

It looks like the resource blocking not working in some cases is an accepted bug, and thus will be fixed soon.

And it's not nearly powerful enough for NoScript to work.

Chrome has that built-in. Go to "Preferences" -> "Under the Hood" -> "Content Settings" -> "JavaScript" -> "Block all". You can also manage per-site blocking from that screen. On websites that use JavaScript, a "JavaScript blocked" icon will appear in the toolbar, and you can click on it and click "Allow JavaScript on this site".

It's just clicking a checkbox. It's a bit deep in the menu structure, but it's not like noscript just magically appears on someone's firefox install either. You have to send them a link to it, or they have to google it.

Second, NoScript makes it possible to restrict JavaScript based on the originating domain; that means I can enable JavaScript for e.g. forums.bioware.com and deny for e.g. ea.com. When I visit forums.bioware.com it will not load scripts from ea.com and I can still have a snappy experience on forums.bioware.com. (Ea.com is, for some reason, a slow piece of shit.)

NoScript makes it possible to restrict JavaScript based on the originating domain

I love that feature. Even if only because it's fun to see sites that load Javascript from a dozen other sites. It's quite impressive how many ad, social app, tracking, etc. scripts some sites cram into their pages.

Looking here [google.com] we can see that, for 2009, Google made 23,651 million in revenue. Considering that 22,889 of those millions were from advertising, you have to wonder how long google will tolerate ad blocking in their products. Sure, it is fine now as not many people use chrome, and even fewer of those people install an ad blocking plug-in, but what about if it becomes more popular? Will they still tolerate it then? One wonders what would happen to google if Microsoft decided to make ad blocking default in Internet Explorer.

I've asked myself this question too. The funny thing is, I would be very OK with google adwords on the page, just not the slow, obnoxious flash-based ads. So if Google explains that adwords will make a reappearance I would be fine with it. I am not anti-ads, I am anti-eyesore and anti-slow-flash-crap.

Well said. I wish there is a way I can state my own ad preferences so that the web sites know what kind of ads I will accept. Like browser sends a string that says, "Will accept text ads, static image ads. No animation, no flash ads, so sound, no pop-ups or pop-unders. Currently in the market for: Digital camera, scuba vacation, college visits"

I want only the obnoxious advertisers to go out of business. I want to provide a carrot for the sites that are willing to play nice.

If they try to disable that Webkit feature after people are used to Chrome ad-blocker, those people will just switch to other browsers, including custom versions of Chromium. Chrome users are tech-savvy, or helped by tech-savvy people, who won't eat it and shut up if they like Adblock./Firefox user, not adblock user

So, if Google makes a good ad blocking system that is included by default, many people will just use that. That means they can control what it does, and what defaults it has. Thus maybe by default it only blocks annoying ads. It stops interstitials, animated crap, popups/unders and so on. However it permits text ads and simple banner ads, which is what Google does. So people say "Ahh this is nice, the Internet isn't annoying," and don't go looking for anything else, or even adjusting the settings.

You have to remember many people don't hate ads, what they hate is ANNOYING ads. I personally don't mind ads, sometimes they are even interesting. I don't run ad block because I appreciate sites need to make money. However I do run Flashblock because I hate annoying ads and that's what they usually are. I hate ads that interrupt my browsing, or that put a heavy load on my system. So an adblock software that just blocks the annoying shit would be ok in my book.

If they include nothing, people have to look elsewhere. Maybe what they get is an app written by a "No ads at all ever," kind of zealot that just straight blocks everything, including Google. that hurts them, of course.

As such by being pragmatic about it, they can have a measure of control over it. If they just try to pretend it doesn't exist, they may get something they don't want.

Even if Google could stop it (which they really can't) they wouldn't want to, because you need the nerd vote. I know that I was thinking about dropping Chrome until real ad blocking appeared (still fails on TPB though, and some other sites) and if it went away I'd go back to firefox in a hot second even though it takes twice as long to start and twice as long to load typical pages I actually load.

Is everyone ever going to make an adblock-alike which, rather than "blocking" ads, just prioritizes them differently so I don't need to wait for fifty ads to load before I can view actual page content? I really don't mind ads. I'm okay with them. I don't want to block them, and I think people who do block them are assholes. But I don't want to wait for them.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, strictly in the "load after" sense. I cannot stand it when the content I am interested won't load because some overworked ad server is stalled.

That said, I'm also an "asshole" who blocks ads. Why? Because I don't care for the way they're shoved in my face constantly. I'm sorry, but I don't care how much you polish it, a turd is a turd, and I want nothing to do with it. Same goes for most ads. I really don't care about the product or service, and shoving it in my face with interstitial ads or flash pop-overs or whatever only makes me hate your brand even more.

I'm tired of being demonized when it's the advert companies who don't have a clue. Get it together, stop bludgeoning me with your dreck, and I might stop blocking it.

I think people are generally thinking the wrong way. They need to make in unprofitable for specific kinds of adverts to be shown. Not block all adverts. This would mean turning off all gif animations and also using Flash block. When the only way that advertisers will be able to show you something is when they don't molest your eyes, things will change.

I can now scroll web pages semi-smoothly on my Atom notebook. Flash movies will usually actually play without the extra cpu load. I also don't have to w

I don't use adblock, but playing Devil's advocate, most ads only "pay for content" if you actually click them. If you won't, then you're not helping pay for the content, you're just wasting the advertisers and your own bandwidth.

I want free content without ads. I'm more than willing to let sites die if they can't provide me with this. Life is too short to subject yourself to unnecessary advertising. I create free web content without ads, so I put my effort where my mouth is. Hmm, that doesn't sound right...

no one is saying that ad blocking should be illegal, just that its immoral. Or maybe I should fight hyperbole with hyperbole and say that you're suggesting that websites with ads should be illegal.

Also subscription based content has been tried and it failed. See salon.com for example. The problem with web content is that you don't know the quality of the content until after you've consumed it. but once you've consumed the content, you have no incentive to buy it. Ads are really the only e

Absolutely. What I want isn't an ad-blocker, just an "ad-controller"; I don't mind the adverts, I even understand that they're necessary - but I don't want them to completely stop me from doing what I came to do. If they could just load after (or concurrently with) the content instead of before, and not do anything that intercepts my mouse movements or slows my browser to a crawl I would be happy.

Some website owners don't seem to understand this. I recently emailed armorgames.com to explain that, while I un

Is everyone ever going to make an adblock-alike which, rather than "blocking" ads, just prioritizes them differently so I don't need to wait for fifty ads to load before I can view actual page content? I really don't mind ads. I'm okay with them. I don't want to block them, and I think people who do block them are assholes. But I don't want to wait for them.

How can you be OK with ads? It's humanly impossible to read text from a screen while 6 flashing ads are begging for attention.

Before ABP I used to stick post-it's to my screen just to cover them up. Ad blocking software is a big step forward.

can't we come to a compromise?
Assholes who fill websites with so many ads that the actual content is unreadable are Assholes.
Assholes who install software to remove the ad-part while still viewing the content-part are Assholes.

If only one of those two assholes existed, evolution would probably take care of them a lot quicker.

everyone seems to have forgotten that matching customers with products is what advertising is all about.

Telling you over and over that you have to spend money on something you have no need of is what advertising is all about. Advertising is obnoxious in all its forms but I grant you that google's ads are the least obnoxious.

I know this is just an attention-seeking post, but I feel compelled to explain one thing. Namely, if you are connected to the Internet, you can host your own content. That's how the Internet works. I pay my ISP for both download and upload speed. Sure, the latter is always a magnitude slower so that the ISP can earn more on "corporate" connections, but I still can host my own website and am not upload amount capped.

Even if companies stop hosting content because they won't make any money on it, there still w

Read the terms of services of your ISP carefully. Most (not all, so maybe you're lucky) have a clause with home service that state you cannot use it to host a a full fledged server (with legalese to separate a server in the technical sense from a server the way we talk about it).

In my case, my ISP goes a step further and blocks port 80 in upload. Obviously can just put the site on another port, but....

I still use Firefox because it's familiar to me and I haven't come across any features in Chrome that make me want to learn the idiosyncrasies of a new piece of software. Chrome is pretty slick, though.

Really it isn't the complexity, but the small differences in what happens when I open new tabs, type things into the address bar, etc. Even in places where I like Chrome's UI better, I just can't get motivated to adjust to a new browser. I admit it's mostly just laziness on my part, like most people I am a creature of habit, and am loathe to change them without a pretty compelling reason.

Yeah, and there are certainly places where FF is better than chrome -- e.g., both have similar "awesome bar" things, but FF's is hugely faster and better at coming up with appropriate matches than chrome's. This is not a small issue for me -- I've come to rely on the AB instead of using bookmarks (chrome's "blank page menu" thing is more user-friendly, but vastly more limiting).

I use both browsers -- FF at home, where my machine has lots of memory, and chrome at work, where memory restrictions make the a

Do you still have to use some behind the curve hacked version to keep all your data from being sent to Google? Because Google's data mining and installing "updaters" that refuse to uninstall with the app made it a non starter for me. Does it have an easy way to allow some scripts but not others? A FEBE style backup? Imagezoom? Something like iMacros that makes automating the things I do trivial? A downloadhelper that will put videos in folder a and executables in folder b?

While Chrome has the buzz right now, too many things like data mining made me uncomfortable with it. And FF is simple enough with its extension framework that even my 67 year old clueless dad has his FF customized. I know everyone talks about its JavaScript engine, but seeing how many "malware o' the day" uses JavaScript I'd prefer NOT to load a bunch of unapproved JavaScript really fast, thanks anyway. And side by side I really can tell a difference anyway, as both load a page as fast as I can click. So while I wish anything that isn't IE the best of luck, for me and my customers it'll be FF for the foreseeable future.

Behind the curve? I'm on Linux, which was always the poor cousin in the early days, and Chromium is ahead of the curve because it is the development version (I'm running 6.0.457.0 and saw a site that said I didn't have a "latest version" of Chrome or Firefox the other day because it said they didn't official support development builds).

Do you still have to use some behind the curve hacked version to keep all your data from being sent to Google? Because Google's data mining and installing "updaters" that refuse to uninstall with the app made it a non starter for me.

Erm, it's called Chromium, and it's kinda more ahead of the curve than behind it, since it's what Chrome is based upon. (Google just adds its data-mining crap to the OSS Chromium code base in order to release Chrome.) So if you use Chromium, you get all of the good stuff and none of the Google rubbish. It's also worth remembering that Chromium's sandboxing of tabs provides some level of security against web malware exploits, even if it can't replace all that noscript offers.

And before you say, "Chrome lets you control JavaScript execution, blah blah blah," yes it does at a very coarse level. NoScript is much more fine-grained, and provides substitute scripts for sites that "need" to run crap from google-analytics et al.

It looks like this functionality may bring NoScript that much closer to Chrome.

Not really. The script debugger is so-so (I still prefer Firebug's, but Chrome's is ok), the resource tracker is nice, but Chrome's DOM inspector is terrible. The interface for modifying DOM properties is klunky, and on Firebug I can assign a shortcut to toggle the click-to-inspect feature, which I really miss on Chrome - it makes me click the button to toggle click-to-inspect, alt-tab to the webpage window, and the select the element to inspect. It's convoluted.

You seem to be assuming that the user wants to run each and every script on the pages they encounter... this is not the case.One of the main reasons to use Noscript is to avoid scripts that are not designed with your best interest in mind.

I still use Firefox. While Chrome is nice and fast on my laptop (which isn't being used lately), my desktop has lots of power so I don't notice it and it has addons that I couldn't find on Chrome last time I checked (like a month ago). Addons like YouTube video downloads (amoungst the rare other). So while certain addons are missing on Chrome, I'll keep using Firefox.

No, but you haven't done your homework at all. Google Chrome comes with an integrated version similar (yes, it's got a long way to go, but it's still pretty good) to Web Developer. And then there's Switchy! instead of FoxyProxy. And I wrote my own version of Redirector for Chrome. Oh, Xmarks? What's that? Google Chrome has that integrated into it, logging you in to your Google account, storing yout bookmarks on Google, etc.Thank you for trolling Slashdot, have a nice day!

Exactly, even in Australia you can find a ram deal like at msy.com.au and get some cheap ram.
If your app is acting up, log it, report it. But low memory is really a thing of the past.
I like firefox for the addons. Safari/FF is my main browser, with chrome and icab as needed.

A lot of netbooks (like mine) come with 1GB of RAM. I tried to use Chrome on that machine but it would always start swapping after a few hours of continous usage. Number of open tabs didn't matter - Chrome would happily eat 400MB and more of RAM with only ~5 tabs open. So I went back to FF and never had an issue since then. I would really like to use Chrome, but I can't.

I find Chrome is faster in a multi-core environment. While that's most computers these days, I still have some systems where Firefox does tend to run faster... specifically, on my netbook which is capped at 2 cores, and on the PC I have to struggle with at work, where they're so cheap that they're still using CRT monitors. (one of these days I'm going to go to my eye doctor and get a note pointing out that the CRT is bad for my eyesight and that I have a medical requirement for something that was built with

There is a difference between an application that uses memory as cache (when needed) and releases it afterwards, and something ike Firefox that just allocates and allocates even when you have closed 19 of your 20 tabs, and it's still holding on to half a gig or more, causing excessive swapping when you need to alt-tab to something else.

Apple is closely involved with Webkit (it's the backend Safari uses), and this feature that made better ad-blocking possible was contributed by Apple. So it's not entirely random.

Others have asked why google didn't "fix" apple's anti-advertising system by customizing webkit to meet their corporate advertisement-friendly goals. What I ask is why Apple hasn't appeared to capitalize on their adblocking engine (right, right! "not enabled without an extension, but neither is Chrome's yet")

I hear its resource-blocking isn't perfect, but being an Apple-run project, the devs and PR could have appeased the public a week ago for the new Safari 5 release. They remained hushed, and we know they

Apple is not just closely involved with Webkit. They wrote it. Apple created a fork of KHTML and KJS and Webkit was born from that. In 2005 Apple open sourced Webkit and released it to the wild. Contrary to common belief, Apple actually gives quite a bit back to the Open Source community.

In 2005 Apple open sourced Webkit and released it to the wild. Contrary to common belief, Apple actually gives quite a bit back to the Open Source community.

It's because they legally had to - they forked KHTML which was under LGPL. Now webkit is also under LGPL [webkit.org]. In addition, if you go back to the time period you are referring to and read how they released the source back - they made it so that KHTML developers couldn't easily merge the changes [wikipedia.org] back into their project, and offered little to no collaboration with KHTML project. It was Apple's way or highway - yes they are clear legally, but not really a high mark there.

So, Apple may "give quite a bit back" but this is not really a good example.